not too long ago the oil patch was saying they'd reached peak production, so I fail to see how you think they've been saying they haven't. Conventional oil is tapped, and it will take more money and time to develop what they have in new reserves. That's why the oilsands came online finally, why it was fnially profitable, and not one person in the patch ever disputed that. The difference is the doomsday scenario... peak oil in the patch means the peak of easy flowing production, not the disappearance of all fossil fuels... they don't pin the end of the world on more expensive production, they simply see market adjustments due to it. More expensive fuel means more public transit for instance. More local food. Governments have been talking about this for years because they've all known and talked freely about rising cost of production. It's been no secret.
Tar sands = filthy dirty bitumen "oil"
- Thread starter dumpthemonarchy
- Start date
Govts have not been talking about this for years. Bush, Obama, Harper or Campbell simply do not mention it. Show me the quotes, speeches and govt reports. The Sun newspaper mentions peak oil once every few months. I mention peak oil to people and they have no clue.
Peak oil means the end of cheap oil. Now the oil coming online is dirtier and much more expensive-like the oil sand, fracking, and deep offshore oil. We're not gonna drive nearly as much if gas hits $3 per litre. Cost is key.
Yes, the tar sands are profitable and thousands of moose, deer, and birds die in the mucky, gooey, talings ponds each year.
Bush in Germany for talks on oil price, Iran | Reuters this is one about Bush traveling in '08 to discuss soaring oil and food costs.
Obama recently opened the Atlantic coast for drilling... why? Because of the abundance of oil elsewhere? I won't post links, it was all over the news.
The last Canadian election was rife with discussion about the environment and fuel shortages. The Greens won plenty of votes because of it.
If you haven't heard politicians discussing the rising costs of petrochemicals, and our need to find alternatives, then you've been living under a rock.
What you WON'T hear them do however, is use the term 'peak oil', due to the large number of unfounded and frankly, fear mongering articles to be found on the net about what peak oil is defined as, and what it will mean for us in the future.
I don't even pretend to have knowledge that I don't have, but I have a
question about this story. Once Oil Sands are extracted and refined,
and are flowing south to the USA in the same pipe (I'm assuming that
there aren't designated pipelines for conventional and other oil), how
does the Washington town expect to boycott some of the oil in a pipe,
but not some of the oil in the same pipe from a different source?
Sorry, no good. Wonk news, not the mainstream media newspapers, radio or TV.
When was the last time you said peak oil to someone and talked about it?
Palin is wailin' that its the enviros that caused the BP spill and more shallow water drilling needs to be done. Such a smartie.
Sarah Palin: BP oil spill is the fault of environmentalists who wouldn't let companies drill on land | Mail Online
The Greens are such a powerful force in Canada. Especially Alberta. We've been
discussing the env. for decades. Yawn.
Like someone told me in 1980, we'll start saving gas when its all gone.
Gotta say the key words to the little people. You're like most Canadians when you get together you don't talk politics at all. Politcians talk about the rising cost of petrochemical? Show me the links please. Be specific.
BP report shows importance of Gulf of Mexico | Business | The Guardian
okay fine, if you want to be lazy, I'll post a couple links for you but I'm not chasing around doing google searches you're perfectly capable of doing all day.
First topic up, the G8 summit...
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/255927
From harper's own lips in '08....
"Let me just say this. If a decline in the use of hydrocarbons is environmentally necessary, it’s important to understand that it is also going to be economically unavoidable in future decades. Indeed, the end of the era of low-cost hydrocarbons is at hand. "
Prime Minister of Canada: Prime Minister Harper addresses the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce in London
That's from two simple Google searches... add that to the link about Bush, and Obama's plans before this spill to expand drilling.
*shrugs* if you haven't been hearing about these issues in the news I think you're not listening.
Just a flood of news about peak oil here. It's on the web, but it's not out there in Canadian conversations. It's not an issue yet.
Conservatives, Harper, Bush, Cheney et al know about peak oil of course, which is why there is such a rush to develop the tar sands. Americans and their lackeys are more than willing to sacrifice our environment for their SUVs.
It depends on the formation and the production (is it an oil or gas well; whats the geology and hydrology of the formation; etc.). The biggest concern is that the fluid pumped in doesn't create a precipitate or scale in the well that plugs the flow channels they are trying to open.
An important distinction is to recognize that while we appear to have found all or most of what there is to find in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, there are still other frontiers for petroleum production. There is oil out there, all over the place, but its more costly to extract than what we're used to. Non-conventional supplies like the oilsands in Alberta and Saskatchewan (and the ones identical to them in South America), and oil shales, like those in the NW USA, as well as suspected reserves in the far North and other off shore locations. These can be developed economically, now that the price has risen due to dropping conventional supplies and increased demand from places like China and India.
The REAL problem is that too many companies are willing to take shortcuts, as evidenced by the BP failure in the Gulf of Mexico, because shortcuts mean lower initial costs which mean a manager comes in under budget and the MBAs in the uppermost echelons of these companies reward those types of initiatives... even when it means they are playing Russian roulette with the environment or even people's lives in some cases. Thats why there is a need for strong regulation.
BP might just be a very bad company, or like any other. Yet they are still making plenty of money. Could be a corporate culture with a conventional/easy oil mentality and just aren't equipped for the rigours of extreme drilling. This will make unconventional more uneconomic, so more corners will be cut ...
No doubt the tar sands are an environmental catastrophe. But we are committed to exploiting this resource now and we should try to minimize the impact.
Downstream from Ft McMurray is the native village of Fort Chipewyan. These people suffer abnormally high cancer rates:
CBC News - Health - Fort Chip cancer rates higher than expected: report
The oil industry and the Alberta government claim the high rate of cancer is unrelated to the tar sands upstream.
Downstream from Ft McMurray is the native village of Fort Chipewyan. These people suffer abnormally high cancer rates:
CBC News - Health - Fort Chip cancer rates higher than expected: report
The oil industry and the Alberta government claim the high rate of cancer is unrelated to the tar sands upstream.
Gas prices, resource conservation, etc. is a huge part of the conversation amongst the people I know.
Same topics here. But no peak oil on the list, here too. And it won't be part of Canadian discussions until it makes into the mainstream media on a regular basis. Will the words peak oil really scare the little people that much?
That's because they don't enough studies of the tar sands. Alberta Environemnt is a lackey of the oil biz, like the Alta govt is. Do nothing to affect oil profits. Even though tar in the ground is money in the bank. They like to hustle for Americans and a nice pat on the bum once in a while from DC.
The oil spill and credit crunch were bad. An oil crunch would be worse
Small print of BP Statistical Review of World Energy is troubling
<LI id=contrib-shift sizcache="1" sizset="55">
The oil spill and credit crunch were bad. An oil crunch would be worse | Jeremy Leggett | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
After BP's chief economist, Christoph Buhl, finished his presentation launching the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy this afternoon, I reminded him that last year he had played a question on peak oil for laughs, pouring scorn on the issue. In the interim, I pointed out, more and more people had become worried about the prospect for a premature peak in global oil production, not least the companies in the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).
Given the heightened stakes with risk assessment in BP's world of late, how safe did he feel he that BP is serving its shareholders well by insisting, as he had, that "reserves remain sufficient to meet demand growth" and that "the supply will never peak". As he well knew, growing numbers of people – not least in his own industry – consider this assessment to be dangerously complacent.
"Very safe," he said. The invitation-only audience duly laughed.
I felt as the occasional whistleblowers must have felt when Goldman Sachs and their peers heaped scorn on them as they warned that some complex derivatives might end up not being assets at all, but rather toxic sludge on the global balance sheet.
scanned my copy of the Statistical Review. At the top of the inside cover I read, in a big, bold font: "The Review is one of the most widely respected and authoritative publications in the field of energy economics, used for reference by the media, academia, world governments and energy companies."
A bible in other words. Journalists base statistics in articles on it, the world over. Students base learned papers upon it. World governments base their energy policies on it. And energy companies echo it, for it most part, to all who will listen.
And in small print at the bottom of the same page I read: "The data series for proved oil and gas reserves … does not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelines and practices used for determining proved reserves at company level, for instance, …. as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nor does it necessarily represent BP's view of proved reserves by country. Rather, the data series has been compiled using a combination of primary official sources and third-party data."
----------------------------
In other words, lots of guesses. Party on.
There is obviously plenty of serious talk there. Laughing real quietly.
Small print of BP Statistical Review of World Energy is troubling
<LI id=contrib-shift sizcache="1" sizset="55">
- Jeremy Leggett
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 June 2010 19.00 BST
The oil spill and credit crunch were bad. An oil crunch would be worse | Jeremy Leggett | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
After BP's chief economist, Christoph Buhl, finished his presentation launching the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy this afternoon, I reminded him that last year he had played a question on peak oil for laughs, pouring scorn on the issue. In the interim, I pointed out, more and more people had become worried about the prospect for a premature peak in global oil production, not least the companies in the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).
Given the heightened stakes with risk assessment in BP's world of late, how safe did he feel he that BP is serving its shareholders well by insisting, as he had, that "reserves remain sufficient to meet demand growth" and that "the supply will never peak". As he well knew, growing numbers of people – not least in his own industry – consider this assessment to be dangerously complacent.
"Very safe," he said. The invitation-only audience duly laughed.
I felt as the occasional whistleblowers must have felt when Goldman Sachs and their peers heaped scorn on them as they warned that some complex derivatives might end up not being assets at all, but rather toxic sludge on the global balance sheet.
scanned my copy of the Statistical Review. At the top of the inside cover I read, in a big, bold font: "The Review is one of the most widely respected and authoritative publications in the field of energy economics, used for reference by the media, academia, world governments and energy companies."
A bible in other words. Journalists base statistics in articles on it, the world over. Students base learned papers upon it. World governments base their energy policies on it. And energy companies echo it, for it most part, to all who will listen.
And in small print at the bottom of the same page I read: "The data series for proved oil and gas reserves … does not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelines and practices used for determining proved reserves at company level, for instance, …. as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nor does it necessarily represent BP's view of proved reserves by country. Rather, the data series has been compiled using a combination of primary official sources and third-party data."
----------------------------
In other words, lots of guesses. Party on.
There is obviously plenty of serious talk there. Laughing real quietly.
Big time fracking. Going nuclear.
In the book, Stupid to the Last Drop by William Marsden, he discusses at the start of the book how in the 1960s the USA wanted underground nuclear explosions to "melt" the tar sands oil to make exploiting it easier. There were many underground nuclear explosions done in those days in the USA and the USSR so this could have happened in Canada.
A more current discussion by Andrew Nikiforuk talking about it, who also wrote a good book about the tar sands.
Talking Tar Sands with Andrew Nikiforuk | rabble.ca
In the book, Stupid to the Last Drop by William Marsden, he discusses at the start of the book how in the 1960s the USA wanted underground nuclear explosions to "melt" the tar sands oil to make exploiting it easier. There were many underground nuclear explosions done in those days in the USA and the USSR so this could have happened in Canada.
A more current discussion by Andrew Nikiforuk talking about it, who also wrote a good book about the tar sands.
Talking Tar Sands with Andrew Nikiforuk | rabble.ca
I think we are at a cross-roads, oil production is peaking and we are going to have take more risky measures to acquire it. But I'd rather be using the stuff in Alberta then the stuff covered in the blood of 100'000 Iraqis.
Me too. Especially considering Saddam was selling oil on the world market. Plus he saw al-Qaeda as his enemy. Iraq has so many undeveloped oil fields it could likely hold off peak oil with adequate investment.
Tar sands oil has a EROEI of only about 5-1. Conventional oil is from 25-60 to one. One hundred years ago it was 100-1 as gushed out of the ground as in Beverly Hillbillies. Because it takes energy to get energy, tar sands oil is really only viable with cheap conventional oil.
Well i'm in fort mac and working in the oilsands in the tailings reduction department(TRO) and I can say they are going full bore on not only cleaning up the tailings with new technology but they are also reclaiming as fast as is possible useing this new technology.Now as fast as they can pump and dredge the ponds that are not being used,we can inject a polymer into the slurry and then it's spread out on a cell or field and disced with a farm implement to enable drying.We use an existing old settling pond as a field or cell to contain the mft(mine fine tailings) as its being tilled and disced by dozers and farm implements.The polymer allows the tailings to seperate from the water molecules so it will actually evaporate in about 20 days leaving a dry MFT product that is very good for road material and sells for about $15.00 a tonne.
Without the polymer injected the tailings will not evaporate and will sit for 20 years.
This is all new technology and the company Im with right now more or less inventented the technique and it will take off in all the oilsands projects.
The area i'm in right now is all sand,pure white sand after the bitumens been extracted,I see huge jumps in reclamation coming very soon as the govt. has laid down the law and there will be some huge fines levied if theres no compliance.They are very commited to reclamation also,more then anyone would ever think.
Anyone who thinks the oilsands dont contribute in a huge way to the canadian economy should visit fort mac. Allthough I sometimes think i'm in Newfoundland its a huge melting pot of people from all over the world,not just easterners.
I dont find it too expensive except maybe housing but there are lots of apartments for rent and bedroom suites starting at $600.00 a month.
I pay $650.00 for one room but it's an an $800,000 house and theres lots of room and the utilities are all paid for and i get the run of the house.
These oilsand will just keep getting bigger,lots of new projects getting approved right now along with expansions.I can see them being the producer for all of north America's petroleum needs untill a viable alternative is found or developed that can compete and be affordable.
Without the polymer injected the tailings will not evaporate and will sit for 20 years.
This is all new technology and the company Im with right now more or less inventented the technique and it will take off in all the oilsands projects.
The area i'm in right now is all sand,pure white sand after the bitumens been extracted,I see huge jumps in reclamation coming very soon as the govt. has laid down the law and there will be some huge fines levied if theres no compliance.They are very commited to reclamation also,more then anyone would ever think.
Anyone who thinks the oilsands dont contribute in a huge way to the canadian economy should visit fort mac. Allthough I sometimes think i'm in Newfoundland its a huge melting pot of people from all over the world,not just easterners.
I dont find it too expensive except maybe housing but there are lots of apartments for rent and bedroom suites starting at $600.00 a month.
I pay $650.00 for one room but it's an an $800,000 house and theres lots of room and the utilities are all paid for and i get the run of the house.
These oilsand will just keep getting bigger,lots of new projects getting approved right now along with expansions.I can see them being the producer for all of north America's petroleum needs untill a viable alternative is found or developed that can compete and be affordable.
I'd rather not use any. The stuff should have been left where nature had it rather than spread around to create messes. lol